Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

Author Image

Robert M. Pirsig

Profession : Philosopher

Birth : September 6, 1928

Quality is the Buddha.

Robert M. Pirsig

I have money, fame, a happy wife, our daughter Nell.

Robert M. Pirsig

Up until my first book was published, I had all this potential, people would say, and I screwed up. After it, I could say: 'No, I didn't screw up.'

Robert M. Pirsig

What I am is a heretic who's recanted and, thereby, in everyone's eyes, saved his soul. Everyone's eyes but one, who knows deep down inside that all he has saved is his skin.

Robert M. Pirsig

When somebody goes outside the cultural norms, the culture has to protect itself.

Robert M. Pirsig

I really don't mind dying because I figure I haven't wasted this life.

Robert M. Pirsig

I did not want to write one of those sequels that famous first-book authors get into where everybody says, 'Oh yeah.'

Robert M. Pirsig

The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling.

Robert M. Pirsig

The solutions all are simple - after you have arrived at them. But they're simple only when you know already what they are.

Robert M. Pirsig

The funny thing about insane people is that it is kind of the opposite of being a celebrity. Nobody envies you.

Robert M. Pirsig

Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20 - 20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go.

Robert M. Pirsig

The Buddha resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain.

Robert M. Pirsig

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

Robert M. Pirsig